What is the gargoyle on the cover of R.E.M.’s 1981 EP “Chronic Town,” the band’s first extended communique to the world, thinking? Could he be wondering why he can’t understand a word Michael Stipe, in dire need of elocution lessons, is saying? Or how a record painted with a palette composed entirely of muted earth tones can be so joyful? We’ll never know, because gargoylese is even harder to understand than Stipe.
What we do know is that “Chronic Town” was one of the most mystifying, enigmatic, fascinating, and influential releases to emerge at the dawn of the 1980s, and that anyone who thought R.E.M. a flash in the pan couldn’t have been more wrong. “Chronic Town” marked the beginning of an empire, like the Mongol one but without the barbarism and cool helmets. Stipe would soon meet with a world-class mumblologist and become intelligible, which was a mixed blessing—his incomprehensible singing on “Chronic Town” constitutes a large part of its cryptic charm. Take “Gardening at Night.” Is Michael really saying “We emptied the garbage can but they were busy with his nose”? No, as it turns out, but you’ll need to consult a lyric sheet to be sure.
“Chronic Town” made such an impact on listeners for the simple reason that it sounded completely new, and unlike anything being produced at the time. It wasn’t punk or post-punk or post-anything for that matter. It had an aura of mystery about it intensified by the fact that Michael Stipe made it impossible to understand its message—sure you can make out phrases, but much of it is as indecipherable as Maya hieroglyphic script. Even the band’s Southern hometown of Athens, Georgia added to the band’s mystique. Its classical moniker posed as much of a mystery as the band at the time, and it was mainly R.E.M. who were responsible for putting the sleepy college town’s name on the musical map.
Had R.E.M. offered nothing to the world but Michael Stipe’s perverse obscurantism—a strategy he would abandon after the band’s appropriately titled 1983 debut LP Murmur—they would never have escaped the encroaching kudzu of the Deep South. It was the band’s uniquely murky twist on the jingle-jangle aesthetic that made them so unique. The songs on “Chronic Town” are sprightly, but unconventionally, and indeed uniquely so. The music produced on “Chronic Town” by guitarist Peter Buck, bass guitarist Mike Mills, and drummer Bill Berry is as muddy as the Oconee River, and as such has nothing in common with the bell-rung clarity of touchstone forebears like The Byrds. Vocals and music perfectly complement one another, leaving you in the aural equivalent of the Okefenokee Swamp.
The title of opener “Wolves, Lower” is Stipe at his arcane best. You can actually make out most of what he’s singing but it doesn’t help much—you’ll need a cryptologist to crack the code of his human Enigma Machine-generated lyrics. But the melody is enthralling and the rhythm upbeat, and I can still remember the happy confusion I felt upon first hearing the song. “Gardening at Night” does the seemingly impossible by being simultaneously driving and limpid, while Stipe murmurs up a storm. Does it help to know—after taking a clandestine peak at the lyric sheet—that he sings, “We echoed up the garbage sound but they were busy in the rows”? Not really. Michael Stipe doesn’t like to spill secrets, secrets that may be (it’s possible) secrets even to himself.
And speaking of secrets, the first words out of Stipe’s mouth on the Byrds-like “Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars)” are “There’s a secret stigma, reaping wheel.” The stigma remains unknown—what you’re left with are repeated phrases like “Boxcars are pulling out of town,” and “Gentlemen don’t get caught,” which won’t help you solve any mysteries. He also lets us know we’re in “Chronic town,” which may or may not be a dig at sleepy Athens.
“1,000,000″ has its secrets too, and literally—in addition to Stipe’s boast that he could live a million years he sings “All along, all along, all along the tomb/Secrete in, secret in, secret in the ruin.” His vocals have more grit than usual, in keeping with his boast of near-immortality—why, he almost sounds downright angry. It could be because even he doesn’t know what “Secluded in a marker stone, not only deadlier/But smarter too, smarter too” means, or the band has just informed him he’d better start making sense or he’s off to a school for wayward mumblers.
Finally we have “Stumble,” which opens with laughter (the EP’s only real color) and isn’t quite as seamless as the EP’s other songs—Berry’s staccato drums break things up, especially during his near drum solo towards the end, which serves as a sort of dam that stops up the murky river flow of the rest of the album. As for Stipe’s monologue during the drum break, he could be saying anything. It sounds important. It could be his grocery list. Either way it’s doesn’t solve any riddles.
“Chronic Town” is a masterpiece of atmospherics—of greens and browns and overheard but impossible to make sense of snatches of conversations on the streets of a muggy, claustrophobic Southern town where nothing happens and there’s nothing to do but watch the boxcars leave—something you would love to do but can’t. It’s hometown as chronic condition, and a place where despite what they say about everybody in small towns knowing everybody else’s business, secrets are kept and gardening is done beneath the light of the moon. There are wolves outside the door. Don’t get caught.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
